


the unavoidable sun (here it comes)

by electrumqueen



Series: Boy On Fire [1]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-26
Updated: 2010-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-13 09:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrumqueen/pseuds/electrumqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gale Hawthorne and Madge Undersee are selected for the 74th Hunger Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the unavoidable sun (here it comes)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _The Sun_ by the Naked  & Famous.  
> Implications of violence, unhappiness; this is _The Hunger Games_ , after all.  
> pg-13; ~2500 words.

The girl is wearing a gold mockingjay. The sunlight glances off it, and into Gale's eyes.

"Hi," he says. "Condolences."

"You too," she says. She swallows. She is Katniss' age, he thinks. Sixteen.

Her name is Madge Undersee. She is at a marked disadvantage: she has never gone hungry.

He thinks, _you are going to die,_ and then he stops, and shakes his head, and tells himself, _you are dead too._

He looks out at the crowd. He can see Katniss' face framed by her elaborate dark braid, see tear-tracks streaking down it; can see her reaching across the barrier to Vick and Rory. He thinks, _Be brave, Catnip. Don't let them see you cry._

"I like your pin," he says, and stretches his fingers out between them.

Her hand is small, and solid; her fingernails dig into his flesh when she puts her palm in his.

He squeezes, tight.

\--

On the train, she says, "They took my aunt. Twenty-four years ago."

He says, "I'll teach you to shoot." (Katniss, in his head, is saying, _You can do this. Get to a bow, get clear. You can build traps better than anyone._ )

She's not a great shot; he's not a great teacher.

She keeps crying, when she thinks no one is watching.

Haymitch keeps drinking, doesn't stop. He smells disgusting, but also kind of like the Seam.

Madge looks at Gale, tear-stained, biting her lip; Gale takes a breath and misses Katniss and pours a pitcher of water over Haymitch's head and says, "Are you going to help us or not?"

Haymitch slurs, "What if I say _or not,_ " and then Madge throws a butter knife and it lands in the wall right next to Haymitch's face; all of them take a breath.

She says, "I'm really glad that hit the wall."

\--

Gale's stylist is named Cinna; his eyes are dark like his hair, and his only Capitol flourish is gold lines around them. "Hi," he says. his smile is sweet, sort of; steady. "How are you holding up?"

"Fantastic," Gale says, wry. He thinks about the stylists Twelve usually gets, thinks about Madge with her quiet sobbing, and her quiet beauty he keeps telling himself to not notice. "I suppose you're terrible at your job?"

That startles a laugh out of Cinna, the creases around his eyes surprisingly charming. "You caught me," he says. "First year, right here." He sobers. "I'm very good at this, though."

Gale sticks his hands in his pockets. "All right," he says, "I guess I'm in your hands."

"They're very capable," Cinna says, waggling his fingers, so calm Gale sort of can't not believe him. "How do you feel about fire?"

(Just before Gale left, he and Katniss cooked a fresh kill over a low flame. He remembers how her eyes were dark, reflecting the embers.) "That depends," Gale says, "on what you are going to do with it."

\--

Cinna sets Gale on fire, and Portia makes Madge into diamonds, and when they hold hands the light catches them and makes them transcendant, and there is not an eye in Panem not focused on the two of them in their chariot. Gale thinks for a moment about his girl in the woods, about Posy and Vick and Rory and Prim and his mother; but that washes away with the applause over them.

Madge is wearing all white; she sparkles, she is stunning and sharp as a diamond and her hair is sparkling with them; her left hand is black, though, dusty; _this is where your diamonds come from._

Gale is her opposite, in black, _burning_ ; his right wrist is all white; _I can become you._ He wonders if this is how a revolution starts, and puts that out of his mind.

Caesar Flickerman asks Gale about sweethearts, back in the district. He swallows; he was always better off as a team player. "She came here with me," he says, and the crowd explodes.

\--

There is a redhead, with a sharp face. In the training centre she says, "So you're a little bit of a revolutionary."

Madge's eyes still have a little makeup on them. She says, "What the fuck are you talking about."

The girl's eyes catch Gale's and do not let go. The curve of her mouth is sharp like the knives the girl from Two is brandishing all over the place; she says, "Happy Hunger Games," and turns away.

\--

The twelve-year-old from Eleven says, "You're good with rope."

She makes him think of all the children he loves, back home. "I'll teach you," he says. "It's not that hard."

Her district partner asks him, _Do you have a plan._

\--

The tributes from One are something completely alien to Gale; they have strange names and Capitol accents and the boy keeps staring at Gale as if Gale has something he wants.

Finally Gale snaps, says, "What did I do to you?"

And he -- his name is Marvel, Gale thinks -- laughs and flutters his eyelashes. "Interesting strategy," he says.

It takes Gale a moment, then he remembers; _Madge_. "It's not a strategy," he says. (But he is starting to believe in something. Cinna didn't just set his clothes on fire, there's something in Gale's heart that needed to be stirred, that needed to be burning. There is something in Gale that had a thought, maybe has always had this thought, and now it is unwinding.)

"Bullshit," Marvel says, but it's admiring. "How are you placed for alliances?"

\--

Haymitch stinks. "What the fuck are you _doing,_ " he snaps at Gale.

Gale raises an eyebrow. "Training," he says.

Haymitch grabs his shoulder and says, "We are going to the roof."

(Here is the thing about Haymitch; he is so Seam it hurts, despite the paunch and alcohol and money. He is something Gale understands.

Here is the thing about understanding: it cuts both ways.)

He says, "You'll need the Careers. You'll need all of them." The wind is running through his hair. Blood vessels in his eyes have popped, leaving them red.

Gale says, "You'll die."

Haymitch laughs, and it's hollow, and sharp, and broken. "You think I'm living now?"

\--

The pair from Three look at Gale with wide eyes when he says, "I'd like to make an alliance."

The boy is shaking. He says, "What about tradition?"

Gale bares his teeth, sort of a grin. "Fuck tradition," he says.

\--

The boy from Five is unsteady, hard to read. He stands next to Gale at the camouflage station and writes, _v - vii_ in berry juice on a leaf, then smudges it out.

Gale murmurs, "Thank you," and catches the eye of the redhead, who is halfway across the center with her fingers wrapped around a bow, arrow nocked and at the ready.

She winks, silverfish-quick, and hits the centre of her target.

\--

For his evaluation, he shoots badly; misses obvious targets and drops arrows. He can almost hear Katniss over his shoulder saying, _Gale, what the fuck._

He grins on his way out, and thinks about traps. They're all about behaviour; all about knowing which way you're going to go: there is no one better at them than him.

\--

Madge whispers, _you want to destroy them._ It is the night before the Seventy-Fourth Games. She is cross-legged on her bed, next to him. When she turns her head moonlight catches on her cheekbones.

He says, _Katniss will look after my family._ He trusts her; he trusts the forest that raised the both of them. _You don't have to,_ he adds, because he can't get word to Katniss, because her parents will be in Twelve no matter what.

 _They killed my mother when they took her sister,_ she says. _What can I do?_

\--

Here is the thing, about the Cornucopia: it becomes less of a bloodbath when no one is trying to kill anyone else, except the Careers; you can get a lot of what you need if you move fast, and as a block.

(He makes Madge and Rue run; close combat, with the two of them, is not a good idea.)

The boy from Two is a beast; the girl at his side is a flicker of a thing, perfectly complimentary. It's terrifying.

But then again: so is Gale.

\--

" _All of us will die,_ " Madge says, to the girl with the knife. "Isn't that what you want, more than victory?"

Clove's eyes are wild, feral, intense. "Maybe," she says.

Cato says, "We're listening."

\--

It does not take very long, ultimately. They build camp, post sentries; it's hilarious, how easy life is with all the Cornucopia goods. Easier than it was at home, for sure.

A camera buzzes up to Gale. "Hi," he tells it. "We're not playing your game, this time. You want us dead? You're going to have to kill us _yourselves._ "

Cato's laugh is deep like thunder. "You don't control who I kill," he says. "Only I can do that."

\--

The redhead asks, "Why did you start this?" Her eyes are bright green, and curious, and sharp. He realises he has never seen her afraid.

They are on sentry duty; the plains beyond the Cornucopia are wide and infinite and empty, but certainly full of things that want to kill them.

Gale tilts his head up and stares at the stars. "I don't know," he says, picking out constellations; the hunter with his three-star belt is the first to catch his gaze. He remembers his father pointing them out, remembers showing them to Katniss and Vick and Rory and Prim on late nights, to make up for hunger. "I guess-- I didn't have a lot of options. And someone had to do it. What about you-- you didn't have to go along with it. You didn't have to help me."

She shrugs. "Didn't think I could beat you," she says. "Thought I might as well-- my name is Vianna, it's Capitol for _survive_. That's not all I am; I won't let it be all I am. It's all my district is, but that's not-- it's not me."

"If we were playing this game, you know I'd be dead." There's no point lying; she started this and now he's _curious_ , and he's probably going to die in the morning, so it'd be nice to know. He thinks, if she'd not played his game, played theirs instead, she would probably not staring down death like they both are, now.

"I was trying to say something nice for you," she laughs, and then sobers. "I don't know: you looked brave. I've never seen anyone brave like that before. I'm not usually impulsive; I thought I'd try it, just this once."

If he does not laugh, he will cry. He finds himself mesmerised by the fall of her hair, and the brightness of the stars.

\--

They execute Madge's mother and beam it into the Arena.

Madge buries her face in Gale's shoulder and says, _I hate you_ and he strokes her hair and finds himself crying and says, _I know, I know._

He wonders if he's capable of seeing Katniss up there. He wonders if she was smart enough, quick enough, fast enough, to get them out. He wonders if his kissing Madge is enough to protect his girl in her woods.

The next one up is Haymitch. He winks, before he dies.

Gale knows it's meant for him, knows it is saying, _good job, boy._ It really does not help.

\--

They sit, and they wait, and they watch people die.

There are announcements all the time; _Resume the Games as normal._

They sit, and talk, and wait.

\--

"Do you think it will be quick?" Rue says, into a lull in conversation. She's shaking, a little.

There was a bottle of something alcoholic in the Cornucopia; Gale has no idea who would go for that in the _Hunger Games_ , but this is a whole new game so they're passing it around. "We'll make it quick," he promises, and takes a quick swallow, for the burn.

Clove says, "I call mercy kills." Her teeth are very white, in the starlight.

Cato, a beat behind, says, "Oh shit."

Vianna takes the bottle from Gale's hand and rolls her eyes. " _The mating habits of sociopaths_ ," she whispers, wry but there's an edge to it; fear maybe, or anticipation.

Madge is curled up against Gale's side. Her eyes are red from crying. She says, _so_ weary, "If it comes to mercy kills, what makes you think you won't need one?"

Their laugh is perfectly synchronised, and utterly disbelieving.

\--

The sun rises. It's not like he didn't think it would, but-- for some reason he thought it might be different.

The boy from Four says, "I hate that I can't see the water. I hate that I can't smell the sea." His voice is cracking; his mother was just up there, in the sky. She screamed, and cried, and it was slow.

His partner has her arm around him, careful. She says, "Do you remember-- this is what it's like, every morning, in District Four. The sun rises over the sea and it's like-- it's like gold and crimson and pink washing across the water and you look out and it's just-- it's so beautiful. It's like nothing can touch that, 'cause it's so bright and so _vast_. And it smells like salt and fish guts and you're sick of it but-- you miss it."

Rue says, "The best part of Eleven is the way the birds sing. Like they're your friends-- there's this tune, we teach them in the fields." She whistles, four notes, simple, and turns to Thresh.

"Mockingjays," Thresh says, quietly. "Like Madge's pin."

It is not like they can talk about people they love, Gale thinks. Maybe this is as close as they will get to saying good-bye.

He says, "There is a forest, just outside Twelve. It's quiet there, except for the animals. You can hunt and it's like-- it's like everything makes sense." He thinks, _Bye, Katniss._

\--

It is a wall of fire. This makes him laugh, too exhausted to be chagrined at the terrible irony of it all.

Madge says, "Do you think they'll remember us?"

He tightens his arm around her shoulder and lets the heat run through his body. "Not a chance," he says. He thinks, _I never meant to kill you._

But the fire is around them, now.

He stretches out his hand, and hits the girl with the red hair; she grabs his hand tight and holds it, like she's scared. On Madge's other side is Rue, and Thresh after her, and the boy from Four after _him_ , and on and on until:

Cato hesitates, but he takes Clove's hand. When she smiles, for a moment Gale thinks he sees truth.

\--

Here is the thing about the fire: it hurts more than Gale ever imagined.

Here is the thing about light: it reflects, on the curve of a gold pin, affixed to a girl's shoulder.

Gale breathes out, and burns.

/end.


End file.
